Fate Laws Law: Sales growth does not necessarily change fate. The primary responsibility of a marketing executive is to find a growth model that changes fate. A dairy company's sales increased from 100 million yuan five years ago to 300 million yuan now. Is this company closer to or further from death? The answer is closer. That is, sales growth did not change the company's fate of death. Six years ago, another dairy company with only 50 million yuan in sales, when the boss held an executive meeting, wrote down 700 million, 2 billion, 5 billion, and 10 billion yuan consecutively on the blackboard. This company is Mengniu. Because Niu Gensheng knew that only by quickly reaching 10 billion yuan in sales scale could they gain the opportunity to integrate the industry and change their fate. When a company "pushes forward" its development speed according to its own scale, fate does not change. When Mengniu "pushes backward" its development speed according to industry development laws, fate naturally changes. Law: A company's fate changes due to a change in its industry position; sales growth that does not change industry position is worthless. Is it more valuable to achieve 10 million yuan in sales in a province or 1 million yuan in a county? Possibly achieving 1 million yuan in a county is more valuable. Because this means the company may dominate that county market and be the "leading boss" of that county. In contrast, companies achieving 10 million yuan in a province may be numerous, and the company does not have the ability to dominate the provincial market. Law: During industry consolidation, over 90% of companies will inevitably die; marketing executives must find a way out for the company. In industries that have already achieved consolidation, such as home appliances, instant noodles, beer, and meat products, less than 10% of companies have survived. Therefore, the development process of an industry may be the death process of 90%, even 99% or 99.9% of companies. Only a few industries may be exceptions (such as catering). During industry consolidation, companies have only three paths: first, become the industry leader and integrate other companies. Second, reach a certain scale and sell the company to the leading company. Third, die naturally. Law: The secret for weak companies to defeat strong companies is to find the industry's "strategic turning point," turning the strong company's "scale advantage" into a "scale burden." When TCL entered the color TV industry, TCL had no advantages. However, TCL's entry point was precisely the then-newest large-screen color TVs. TCL's impression on consumers was: other color TV companies were leaders in ordinary TVs, while TCL was the leader in large-screen TVs. It was precisely because TCL found the strategic turning point in the color TV industry that it could catch up from behind. Because only strategic turning points can turn the scale advantage of strong companies into a scale burden. Every industry will inevitably experience a strategic turning point every so often. The opportunity for weak companies to change their fate lies in strategic turning points. Otherwise, they must patiently wait for strong companies to make mistakes themselves. Law: Marketing is a "harmful" profession. The life cycle of a marketing model is only 3-4 years, so the life cycle of a marketing executive at a company is usually only 3-4 years, unless you undergo a radical transformation within three years. China's economy is a catch-up economy, characterized by leapfrog development. Therefore, the Chinese market undergoes qualitative changes every 3-4 years. When the environment changes, everything must change. Previously successful marketing models may become ineffective in the new environment. Therefore, if you do not make proactive self-adjustments every 3-4 years, you will be forced to adjust under market pressure. The hardest thing for a person is to break through oneself. It is easy to adjust others, but difficult to adjust oneself. It is difficult to adjust subordinates and distributors who have emotional ties. Therefore, the best way is to step aside early and let others adjust. Model Laws Law: Marketing models are the "mother of success" for enterprises. When a successful practice is summarized into a model, everyone can imitate it and everyone can succeed. Therefore, marketing models are the "mother of success" for enterprises. The value of a model is: when a successful practice is promoted and shared, the enterprise has countless experiences; when a lesson is widely learned, the enterprise only makes one mistake. Because of this, in excellent companies we see: many processes, many norms, and many standard manuals. Whether the enterprise calls these processes, norms, and standard manuals models or not, they are institutionalized promotion of successful practices, even mandatory promotion, and should be regarded as models. In a well-known enterprise, we found that headquarters had already handed over marketing command to regional business units, and the task of headquarters personnel was to "compile books": go to the front line to discover successful experiences, then compile them into "standard manuals" and "marketing norms," and then distribute them to front-line personnel for promotion. Law: A model is a "replicable success." Waiting by a tree stump for a rabbit is a non-replicable success, and a blind cat catching a dead mouse is also a non-replicable success. Not all successes have the same value. Some successes are individual cases, some have universal value. Some successes can be promoted, some have special conditions and prerequisites. A model must be a success with universal value, a success that can be copied and imitated. Law: Marketing success must be finding a simple, effective marketing model. If the enterprise does not have a basic model, and all salespeople are "crossing the river by feeling the stones" in the market, many salespeople will "fall into the river." Marketing must face the general public. To make the general public understand, marketing must be simple, simple enough to be understood at a glance, or even understood without saying. Only when a model is simple can it be imitated by everyone, can ordinary people achieve it, and can it be fully promoted. The complex practices of marketing heroes are often only useful for individuals and have no enterprise value because they may not be promotable. Law: Without a model, you cannot grow big; sticking to a model, you cannot grow long. In some enterprises that "never grow big," we find that "marketing heroes" abound, with many "sales champions" and "gold medal salespeople," but the enterprise just cannot grow big, leading us to conclude: an enterprise with many marketing heroes is destined to fail. Those truly successful enterprises often have few "marketing experts," but they can make ordinary people achieve extraordinary results. How? Not solely by personal ability, but by models and platforms. A true marketing expert is not a salesperson who "a good cat catches mice," but a salesperson who can "summarize the experience and lessons of catching mice and teach more cats to catch mice." When the experience and lessons of "catching mice" are summarized and promoted, a model is formed. Some people describe the characteristics of the Chinese market as "small changes every year, big changes every three years." Each drastic market change makes previously successful models ineffective and resets experience to zero. If you still insist on past successful practices, you will only drift further in the wrong direction. Therefore, even enterprises that are very successful in marketing need to make a comprehensive adjustment to their marketing direction every two or three years. Any practice of sticking to a model will be punished by the market. Models always have prerequisites. When the marketing direction changes, previously effective models are no longer effective. Therefore, once a new marketing direction is determined, the old model should be abolished and a new model sought. Law: Marketing models always come from the front line and go back to the front line. From the front line, to the front line. This is an important model for marketing work, or it can be called the "model for discovering marketing models." The key to marketing models is: they must try every means to find the "mother of success," and then implement it as the enterprise's most important strategy. Therefore, marketing models are the "mother of success" for enterprises. Where does the "mother of success" come from? It does not come from the clever heads of headquarters personnel, but from the actual combat of ordinary front-line personnel and the sharp eyes of headquarters personnel. The "mother of success" comes from the front line. However, the "mother of success" will never "automatically" be reported layer by layer from the front line to headquarters; it must be discovered by headquarters personnel who "go deep into the front line." Trout repeatedly warns us: "Going deep into the front line" is fundamentally different from being "sent" to the front line. The thinking perspective of "going deep into the front line" is "looking at the part from the headquarters perspective," while the thinking perspective of being "sent" to the front line is "looking at the headquarters from the part or looking at the part from the part." Front-line personnel usually cannot discover the value of local success. Rapid Growth Laws Law: The weapon for small and medium enterprises to compete with large enterprises is "speed against scale." Physics has told us: the kinetic energy of an object depends on both mass and speed. Although an egg cannot beat a stone, if you give the egg enough speed, it can make the stone afraid. Casio is a not-large enterprise in Japan. It was able to defeat giants like Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sharp in the calculator field by updating products 50% faster than competitors, increasing production 200% faster, and lowering prices 100% faster. Law: The secret to rapid enterprise development is not racking your brains to make sales, but achieving block-style development by replicating successful marketing models. When replicating models, the enterprise can develop exponentially or geometrically. Rapid enterprise development is not a simple increase in sales, but the replication of successful models. When Shi Yuzhu made his comeback with Nao Baijin, his capital was only enough for one county. After finding a model in one county, the capital and personnel were enough to replicate a second county. The capital and human resources accumulated from the first two counties were enough to replicate the 3rd-4th counties, then replicate the 5th-8th counties, and so on, developing exponentially. Law: Rapid market breakthrough is the lowest-cost marketing method, just as boiling water with a fierce fire for ten minutes saves more energy than simmering with a warm fire for two days. To make a cup of water sweet enough, you need to add enough sugar; to start a market, you need sufficient investment. Some enterprises are reluctant to invest in the market, or lack confidence to invest, always adopting a "trial" approach with small investments. The result is that they spend no less money but with poor results. Doing the market is about creating momentum. As long as you find an effective model, you must dare to invest strongly in the short term. This is the most effective way to quickly start a market. The most uncomfortable state in doing the market is facing the following: the market is lukewarm, investment is not small, adding investment is uncertain, and not investing is unwilling. To quickly start a market, at least three of the following five conditions should be met:

  1. A leading product that can increase volume.
  2. Explosive distribution. Large volume and fast speed, completing in one go what would normally take three distribution rounds. Let merchants feel this product is the next bestseller and cannot miss out. Let competitors have no time to counterattack, form a product popularity atmosphere, and occupy more terminals.
  3. High profit temptation for second-tier distributors. The specific practice is: let second-tier distributors use the famous brand to drive their own products. Note: do not release all profits to second-tier distributors before the product becomes popular; release in multiple times. Know that second-tier distributors digest profits very quickly.
  4. Strong pull in the short term. Through short-term intensive advertising and terminal promotion, quickly pull the market. Strong pull is not only to expand product awareness, but also to let second-tier distributors and terminals stock up.
  5. Three or more waves of strong promotion. Short-term sales expansion does not mean the product has a firm foothold in the market. The most dangerous thing is to give up promotion before the product is stable. Therefore, strong product promotion should have a frequency of three or more waves. Law: A big fire has no wet wood; a big flood has no sinking sand. Rapid enterprise development can "one beauty covers a hundred uglinesses." Rapid development can compensate for the enterprise's disadvantages. Rapid development can quickly cultivate talent because development makes employees more confident, and because rapid development allows individual abilities to be quickly showcased. Therefore, in rapidly developing enterprises, ordinary talent is used as excellent talent. In enterprises without development, excellent talent is used as ordinary talent. Personal development needs to leverage the enterprise's momentum. When the enterprise develops rapidly, salespeople can take advantage of the situation. Wet wood may not burn alone, but with a blazing fire, it can burn. Law: Becoming a dark horse is easy; the difficulty lies in turning from a dark horse into a white horse. Dark horses usually emerge in highly fragmented industries. It is difficult for dark horses to appear in high-concentration industries that have already achieved oligopoly. Dark horses usually find a niche market. Because dark horses can only occupy the market by occupying consumers' minds, and the niche market position may not yet be occupied by strong enterprises. Dark horses usually redefine their industry, and by redefining, they turn the leading enterprise's scale advantage into a "scale burden." Dark horses usually need to leverage strong media for strong communication, so CCTV becomes the first choice for dark horses. The Chinese market is a market full of opportunities. It is not difficult to find an industry and way to form a dark horse. However, a dark horse must survive 3-5 years to become a white horse, which requires solid stamina and management skills. Dark horses compete with explosive power; white horses need endurance. Opportunity Laws Law: Discovering opportunities is more important than solving problems. Without discovering opportunities, marketing executives find it hard to have value. Marketing executives should be discoverers and creators of market opportunities. Successful enterprises are not without problems, but success makes problems less prominent. Marketing executives certainly need to solve problems, but as long as they do not discover market opportunities, problems will accumulate and may never be solved. Once opportunities are discovered, problems may be solved. Law: Discovering market opportunities requires marketing executives to "dive deep into the market." Zhang Yue, the boss of Changsha Broad, had an unforgettable "deep dive" experience. He stayed in North America and Europe for several months, visiting machine rooms one by one, staying three days for long and one day for short. After a deep dive, he found that he had made a big mistake before, and many Chinese enterprises were making the same mistake. We always try to protect the machine, not protect the building from "downtime." In fact, customers do not require the machine to never break down, but to not stop after it breaks down. After months of deep diving, Zhang Yue had a new idea - no matter what, keep the machine running, insist on not stopping, and endure until someone comes to repair it. The previous idea was to stop for repair when it broke down, and stopping brought losses. Through this "deep dive," Changsha Broad completely changed its design philosophy and service system. Marketing executives should not expect middle and junior marketing personnel to discover the essence of the market, nor even expect marketing experts' research to discover customers' real needs. Enterprises need marketing executives to study the market from the overall perspective of the enterprise. Therefore, "deep diving into the market" by marketing executives is an irreplaceable job. Law: Opportunities come from blind spots and edges of public cognition. Opportunities always exist. The key is whether we have the thinking mode to recognize opportunities. Because opportunities that everyone has recognized are no longer opportunities, opportunities always come from blind spots and edges of public cognition. When all enterprises are focused on hypermarkets, hypermarkets no longer generate opportunities. But if you apply hypermarket operating methods to convenience stores and vegetable markets that everyone ignores, who can say there are no opportunities there? When everyone thinks high-end liquor has opportunities, someone finds opportunities in plain bottle liquor, applying high-end liquor operating methods to plain bottle liquor, and thus plain bottle liquor has great potential. When everyone focuses on urban A and B stores, if you focus on urban-rural fringes or urban villages, you will find that is a weak competition market, full of opportunities. Law: When opportunities are not discovered, they are not opportunities. When opportunities are discovered by everyone, they are no longer opportunities. Opportunities are only truly valuable when discovered by a few. When all home appliance enterprises think air conditioning is the only home appliance industry without consolidation and full of opportunities, they find when they enter the air conditioning industry that everyone has entered at the same time. Is the air conditioning industry still an opportunity industry? When all home appliance enterprises think traditional home appliances are sunset industries and IT is a sunrise industry, they find when they enter the IT industry that it is already over-competitive. The blue ocean that has been discovered is no longer blue. Opportunities recognized by everyone are no longer opportunities. Once someone seizes an opportunity and succeeds, latecomers have no chance. Once opportunities are reported by the media and widely known, they are no longer opportunities. Because of this, opportunities are always in your own hands. Never ask others "where are the opportunities?" Law: Market opportunities are not researched out, but insight out. Using pre-designed questionnaires for market research can at most confirm whether your judgment about opportunities is correct, but usually cannot discover new opportunities. Discovering market opportunities usually does not rely on research, but on market insight. Insight is discovering the essence through phenomena, seeing things others cannot think of. Insight is not studying what consumers say, but why they say it. Insight is not studying what consumers buy, but why they buy that way. Insight is not studying which products sell well, but what the laws of bestsellers are. Insight is when consumers say "hope the product is cheaper," you find they do not want to buy cheap products, but products that make them feel they got a bargain. Insight is when consumers are picky about products, you find that picky ones are the real buyers. Insight is when consumers complain, you find it is a great opportunity to turn them into loyal customers. Insight is not studying how successful enterprises perform on stage, but how they do "backstage preparation." Insight is when others think excellent enterprises must have many talents, you find they can make ordinary people achieve extraordinary results. Insight is when others think brand is very important, you find that brand cannot be eaten. Law: Market chaos is a rare opportunity and a valuable resource for enterprises. Ten years ago, the leading enterprises in the frozen food industry were Longfeng and Hai Bawang. At that time, there were many bulk frozen foods from small and medium enterprises, and product quality was not guaranteed. The leading enterprises blamed market chaos and hoped the government would intervene. In 1997, when Synear was just founded, its visibility was low, and it happened to use the chaos in bulk frozen food to develop rapidly. Now, Synear is the industry leader, and the government has begun to strongly regulate bulk frozen food. At this time, those enterprises that hoped to develop after market regulation or did not use market chaos to develop rapidly have no opportunity. However, many people use market chaos as an excuse. Once performance is poor, they use market chaos as a shield; once competitors disrupt the market (such as price cuts), they cannot wait to follow, as if they will not stop until they join the fray. Marketing people need eternal positive thinking, or a sunny mindset. Negative thinking creates problems; positive thinking creates opportunities. Seize opportunities, and problems are solved. Market chaos creates opportunities; this is a sunny mindset. The microwave oven market is not chaotic, but Galanz dominates the market. Do other enterprises have opportunities? The ham sausage market is not chaotic either, but the ham sausage industry has reached a point where even counterfeit products lose money. Do other enterprises have opportunities? Industries that are purified are basically oligopolies or monopolies. And those purified industries have all experienced varying degrees of chaos. The final winners are those who seized opportunities in the chaotic market and eventually stood out. When the market is relatively purified, latecomers basically have no chance to turn the tables. Zhang Ruimin of Haier once said (paraphrased): If you wait for the market to purify before doing the market, the enterprise will also be purified away like bad phenomena. When washing machines, refrigerators, color TVs, and other industries enter oligopoly and the market is relatively purified, many home appliance enterprises enter the air conditioning field at the same time because the air conditioning industry is one of the few still chaotic industries in the home appliance field. Perhaps in a few years, when the market is no longer chaotic, other enterprises will no longer regard the air conditioning industry as an opportunity industry. If an industry has hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of enterprises coexisting, the market must be chaotic due to many enterprises. If an industry has many enterprises and small and medium enterprises can survive, it shows the industry has a low starting point and weak opponents. If you can make money in a chaotic battle, it shows large profit margins and many opportunities. Facing a chaotic market, ordinary enterprises see the opportunity to "fish in troubled waters," while excellent enterprises see the opportunity to "unify the country." Imagine, without the wars of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, would there be Qin Shi Huang's immortal achievement of unifying the six states? Chaos is usually the emergency strategy and self-rescue method for enterprises in crisis. When enterprises have no other way, they will take measures such as price cuts and promotions to disrupt opponents and save themselves. At this time, it is the best opportunity to "clean up" the other side. A chaotic industry usually has a large number of weak small and medium enterprises. The existence of many weak enterprises is an opportunity for enterprise growth, because enterprises are unwilling to face strong opponents. There are two completely different marketing methods to deal with market chaos: one is "you are chaotic, I am not," because the methods that cause market chaos are the simplest marketing methods, and enterprises can use complex marketing mixes to respond; the other is "you are chaotic, I will be chaotic to the end." When the enterprise accumulates enough energy, launching a price war aimed at "cleaning house" is like this. In the process of industry consolidation, price wars that aim to kill opponents are inevitable, thereby completely clearing out the market disruptors and ultimately achieving an oligopolistic industry pattern. The color TV, microwave oven, and ham sausage industries have all experienced such a process. Law: Discovering a marketing battlefield with no competition or weak competition is success. Almost all salespeople lament that sales are increasingly difficult, especially in hypermarkets. "Not doing hypermarkets is waiting to die; doing hypermarkets is seeking death." This is because hypermarkets are an "over-competitive" market. Even P&G and Coca-Cola find it difficult, let alone local enterprises. The shortcut in marketing may not be doing better than competitors in over-competitive markets, but discovering battlefields with "no competition." Competition in over-competitive markets is like a 100-meter race with many experts; leading by one hundredth of a second requires huge investment. In markets with no or weak competition, you can easily establish a winning position. China is a market with extremely complex sales environment, and the complexity of the sales environment provides more choices for enterprises to find competitive advantages. Hypermarkets are valued because of their large customer flow. In China, where has more customer flow than hypermarkets? The answer is vegetable markets. Because as long as there is customer flow, there are sales opportunities. But hypermarkets are over-competitive markets, while vegetable markets are markets lacking competition. Why do many enterprises invest so many resources in hypermarkets, but few enterprises invest in vegetable markets? An enterprise proposed "treating vegetable markets as hypermarkets," which is actually discovering a "battlefield without competition," and their sales can "exceed hypermarkets in vegetable markets." In fact, vegetable markets are not without competition, but only product competition, without competition among salespeople or sales policies. "Treating vegetable markets as hypermarkets" means doing displays, tastings, bundle sales, and promotional activities like in hypermarkets. This is a battlefield where you do not need to pay entry fees, barcode fees, display fees, anniversary fees, DM fees, and dozens of other fees with unclear reasons. For some products, vegetable markets may be the main battlefield for sales. Strategy Laws Law: In the recognition stage, tactics determine strategy. In the practice stage, strategy determines tactics. Strategy determines tactics, which seems to be a well-known truth. But such truths often cannot withstand questioning. Because it cannot answer the question "where do successful strategies come from?" "Marketing strategy comes from successful tactics." This is the main idea of Trout's famous book "Marketing Warfare." Traditional theory holds that top managers should first formulate strategy for marketing, then they must hand the strategy to middle managers, who select tactics to implement the strategy. Trout believes that tactics should dominate strategy, and strategy comes from deep understanding and participation in actual marketing tactics. If a tactic is effective, promoting it comprehensively becomes strategy. When the creative staff of Nao Baijin accidentally created the "gift-giving" advertisement, it was just a tactical issue. But when Shi Yuzhu positioned Nao Baijin as a "gift" and broadcast the ad nationwide, the successful tactic became the company's strategy. Therefore, it can be said: successful marketing executives are "experience wholesalers." When a successful tactic from one place is promoted nationwide, the tactic becomes strategy. Law: Formulating appropriate strategy requires the vice president of marketing to "go deep into the front line." Successful tactics are often not thought up by top managers in the office, but by front-line marketing personnel who adapt for "survival." Therefore, successful tactics often are not listed in the company's "marketing plan," and may be entirely the inspiration of grassroots marketers. Trout believes that since successful tactics determine strategy, a vice president needs to "go deep into the front line" to discover successful tactics. But "going deep into the front line" is different from "inspecting the front line." Only by "going deep into the front line" can you discover how ridiculous the strategies formulated in the office are. Only by "going deep into the front line" can you discover how many effective tactics have not been discovered. Law: The role of marketing executives in strategy is to "make strategy land." If strategy does not land, it is just an ideal. Marketing executives are neither the decision-makers of the enterprise nor the operators of the front line. The responsibility of marketing executives is to establish a connection between strategy and tactics, linking long-term strategy with daily work, making strategy land, and making every day's work part of strategy. Law: The basic strategy for weak enterprises to achieve marketing breakthroughs is to leverage the "advantage effect," while the basic strategy for strong enterprises to consolidate is to pay attention to the "short board effect." There are often seemingly contradictory theories in marketing and management, such as "advantage effect" and "short board effect." Which theory is correct? When discussing theories, people often ignore the prerequisites on which these theories rely. For small and medium enterprises that are not large, there are short boards everywhere. At this time, they need to use their "long board" to attack the opponent's "short board." Therefore, weak enterprises need to maximize their advantages, the so-called "advantage effect." For advantageous enterprises, their own "short boards" are opportunities for opponents, so they must try every means to plug the short boards. As the enterprise grows, it should gradually shift from leveraging the "advantage effect" to focusing on the "short board effect." Law: The strategic orientation of weak enterprises is usually opportunistic, while the strategy of strong enterprises is usually resource-oriented. Weak enterprises have limited resources, so opportunities become the most important resource for enterprise development. Because the emergence of opportunities is often not pre-prepared or pre-predicted, and because opportunities often flash by, weak enterprises seem to have no established, written strategy, but this kind of strategy is precisely the most effective. The characteristics of weak enterprises determine that their strategy is to find opportunities and seize them. Strong enterprises have abundant resources, and it is these resources that determine what the enterprise can do. At the same time, to avoid risks, strong enterprises will give up many opportunities. As long as the opportunity does not align with the enterprise strategy, they would rather give it up. For weak enterprises, no risk is the biggest risk. Enterprises should seek opportunities in risk. For strong enterprises, avoiding risk is the most important strategy. Law: Regardless of enterprise size, "making opponents fear" is always a basic strategy for enterprises. Make opponents fear and feel unattainable. Such a goal is not unattainable; not only large enterprises can achieve it, but small and medium enterprises can too. Only by making opponents fear and feel unattainable can competition become simple, making opponents dare not "use eggs to hit stones." Know that "big eggs" cannot beat "small stones." Only in this way can you occupy the market stably for a long time and obtain long-term stable profits. According to marketing principles: in a regional market, if the first place's sales exceed the second place by 40%, it enters a relatively safe zone. But relative market safety is still not enough. Therefore, the goal I set for doing the market is to exceed the second place by more than double. Only in this way can you make opponents fear and feel unattainable. The principles of war tell us: only when the attacker's force is more than three times the defender's can there be certainty of victory. If your sales are more than double the second place, it is extremely difficult for the opponent to invest more than three times your force. The best way is to give up attacking. The red base areas established by Mao Zedong made opponents fear. Chiang Kai-shek invested several times or even nearly ten times the force in many counter-campaigns but still could not win. The reason is like using a "big egg" to hit a "small stone." Making opponents fear means establishing your own base market so that opponents cannot gain a foothold. The red base areas established by Mao Zedong did not have many people. It was precisely because they had absolute advantage in a relatively small area that they showed strong power. Small and medium enterprises can also make powerful opponents fear. The most effective way is to achieve absolute advantage in a relatively small area and establish a base market. "A strong dragon cannot crush a local snake" is exactly this principle. There are two ways of enterprise development: one is simple increase in sales, like making a bigger "egg"; the other is expansion of the base market territory, like making a bigger "stone." Increasing 10 million yuan in sales in a province is not as valuable as increasing 2 million yuan in a county. It is not terrible that competitors have large sales; it is most terrible that competitors take root in the market. Regardless of enterprise size, only by deeply rooting in local markets can you make opponents fear and feel unattainable. The most effective way to take root in the market is to do the market with high density and achieve seamless coverage of the market. Sales Laws Law: Marketing executives must never look at sales solely based on statistical reports; only net sales are true sales. Short-term sales increases are not always good; sales increases may hide enterprise crises. Are invoiced sales (payment and invoice) and outbound sales (customer pickup) true sales? Due to frequent use of sales policies, sales confirmed by financial data may be just an illusion of sales. After products leave the enterprise, they may be stored in distributor or terminal warehouses, or displayed on distributor shelves. Only sales purchased by consumers are true sales, the "thrilling leap" from commodity to money. Due to the use of sales policies, a large number of products are "hoarded" in the channel, forming "inventory sales," that is, sales stored in the channel. Thus, gross sales = net sales + inventory sales. Marketing executives should focus on net sales, but they are always blinded by gross sales. Law: Accumulation of sales can cause qualitative change in the enterprise, but a faster and more effective way is to cause qualitative change through changes in sales structure. Different combinations of carbon atoms can become graphite or diamond. The difference between graphite and diamond is the atomic structure. Enterprises pursue scale expansion because quantitative change can produce qualitative change. But faster and more effective than increasing sales is producing qualitative change through structural change. So, what methods produce qualitative change through structural change? First, changes in profit models can produce qualitative change. The ultimate goal of an enterprise is profit. Sales are only a prerequisite for profit. If the enterprise finds a new profit model, what if sales decline? Second, changes in product structure can produce qualitative change. Third, changes in market position can produce qualitative change. Sales that do not enter the market forefront have no market position. Law: Sales are first thought out, then made. To make sales, you must first think through two principles: First, where is the future sales growth space? Only by finding the future sales growth space can you know where to find sales. Second, which work can generate sales, especially sustained sales? If you dive into the market to do sales without thinking through the above two principles, even if you have some sales, it is like a blind cat catching a dead mouse, and not everyone is lucky enough to catch a dead mouse every time. Law: Work that contributes to sustained sales growth is more important than sales itself. Sales are certainly important. Without sales, the marketing executive's position is unstable. But if you think about completing the month's sales every day and every month, there will come a day when your position is unstable. Some work can generate long-term sales, such as improving the market fundamentals. Some can only generate short-term sales, such as trade promotions. Only by doing work that contributes to sustained sales growth can short-term sales growth become easy. Law: Marketing management should be "short-term look at work, long-term look at sales." There is a serious "time lag" relationship between sales and marketing work. Large sales in the current month do not mean the work was done well that month, because the simplest way to increase sales is to "strive for company resource support" and "push inventory." Evaluating salespeople solely by sales or process is extreme. The correct approach is "short-term look at work, long-term look at sales." The work of salespeople can be roughly divided into two categories: one is work that creates conditions for the market's "long-term stability"; the other is work that "whitewashes the situation" by generating sales in the current month. Both types of work are indispensable. Without current month sales, you cannot get by; without "long-term stability," there will always be a day when you cannot get by. A salesperson's "pulling up seedlings to help them grow" for a month's sales will inevitably require more time to "cover up," leading to a bigger dilemma. The carrier of sales is the improvement of market fundamentals, which requires the accumulation of salespeople's work. The work performance of a salesperson in the current month may only be reflected after three months of accumulation. Management Laws Law: In successful enterprises, marketing must be simple, and management must be complex. The marketing models of successful companies like P&G and Coca-Cola have long been thoroughly studied, but who can learn them? Any marketing method, once implemented, has no secrets. Why can we study P&G and Coca-Cola thoroughly but cannot learn them? Because we cannot learn the management systems that support these enterprises' operations. Even if you go "undercover," you still cannot learn, because every department and every person is modularized, and everyone is only a part, seeing only the tip of the iceberg. If you cannot learn their management systems, you cannot imitate their marketing methods. Marketing always has to meet distributors and consumers. Enterprises cannot think of customers as too complex, so marketing must not be too complex; it must be easy for ordinary people to understand. Marketing management must face ordinary employees, so the part facing ordinary employees must be simple. But the management system faces strictly selected, well-trained personnel, so it must be relatively complex. Law: The biggest cost in Chinese marketing is resource waste due to inadequate management and supervision. The hardest people to manage in the world are Chinese people, and the hardest Chinese people to manage are salespeople. Because Chinese people are the smartest, Chinese salespeople are best at exploiting loopholes and gaps. Because China's commercialization time is short, Chinese salespeople lack basic professional ethics and self-discipline. Chinese people do not lack wisdom, ideas, or marketing strategies. What they lack most is management, especially marketing management. Due to inadequate supervision, the work efficiency of Chinese salespeople is extremely low. Due to inadequate supervision, expenses are wasted in large amounts. Due to inadequate supervision, market order is extremely chaotic. The primary task of marketing management is to ensure the effective implementation of company policies. Therefore, ensuring the effective implementation of company policies is more important than giving play to the personal initiative of salespeople. Obedient salespeople with slightly less ability are more valuable to the enterprise than capable but disobedient salespeople. In China, remote control is basically equivalent to no control. Chinese marketing management must solve the problem of turning remote control into on-site control. On-site control of salespeople means pushing the management site from headquarters to the market front, applying production management methods to marketing management. Law: The essence of marketing management is "what should be said must be said, what is said must be done, what is done must be seen." "What should be said must be said" basically means that marketing management must be institutionalized, standardized, and procedural. The objects, content, and procedures of marketing management must be standardized in the form of documents and systems to avoid arbitrariness in the marketing management process, implementing "rule of law" rather than "rule of man." "What is said must be done" means that all institutionalized content must be implemented without compromise. The most terrible thing in enterprise management is not the lack of systems, but the lack of authority of systems. Having systems but not effectively implementing them is more harmful to enterprise management than having no systems. "What is done must be seen" means that all marketing behaviors that have occurred must leave records. No record means it did not happen. Law: Implementing separate revenue and expenditure lines and managing sales branches as cost centers is a basic measure to ensure marketing management does not lose control. Under the conditions where the financial monitoring system is not yet perfect and the overall professional quality of marketing personnel is not high, managing sales branches as profit centers usually results in disaster. Many enterprises have already annotated this with painful costs. Under China's current conditions, it is necessary to implement separate revenue and expenditure lines for sales branches, strictly prohibiting the phenomenon of sitting on revenue and expenditure, and independent capital circulation. Law: In marketing management, process is more important than result. Marketing management focuses on process. Controlling the process controls the result. Results can only be produced by process; what kind of process produces what kind of result. The most terrible phenomenon in marketing management is "black box operation" and "opaque process management," which leads to loss of control in process management, and ultimately loss of control in results. The most basic requirement for process management of marketing personnel is to control to "every salesperson's every day's every thing." For process management of distributors, the basic requirement is to manage to "which market each product flows to at what price." For process management of salespeople, it is "manage to every person's every day's every thing." Law: The boss is always the last to know bad news. If a marketing problem reaches the boss, it must be very serious. Because the boss is always the last to know bad news. Front-line personnel are usually the first to know bad news. Even if they want to report the problem to their superiors, they may not be able to explain it clearly. When bad news appears, subordinates tend to solve it themselves and then "claim credit" from the boss. The process of subordinates solving problems themselves may be the process of bad news worsening. There is an old saying: paper cannot wrap fire, but subordinates always have the luck of mind, and only when the paper really cannot wrap the fire will they expose the problem. For bosses in high positions, bad news must "pass five passes and defeat six generals" to reach their ears. For bosses who love to claim credit, bad news may never reach their ears. Subordinates may have many contradictions, but when covering up problems from the boss, they may reach surprising consensus. In some enterprises, as soon as the boss leaves the office, those dispatched bigwigs already know the boss's movements from the secretary's phone calls, and quickly mobilize all forces to prepare for the boss's inspection. Market work has taken a back seat; making the boss satisfied is the first priority. Such inspections cannot find problems; they only cover up problems. In some enterprises, every time the boss inspects the market, the regional manager has already rented a "big Benz" to welcome him, and dozens of people accompany the "inspection" of the market, just like government officials inspecting work. In a hierarchical management system, layer-by-layer reporting may mean layer-by-layer covering up problems, at least "correcting" bad news to suit their own needs. A marketing executive simply said at a marketing conference that all marketing personnel must not bypass him to report directly to the boss. When someone "monopolizes" the boss's information source, the enterprise will never have bad news, only disasters. Local enterprises' management model that values results over process is even more unable to prevent problems before they occur. Only when bad news worsens to the point of being unable to cover up is it forced to reach the boss. I remember a Microsoft executive once said that Microsoft's information management system is such a system: management has levels, but information transmission has no levels. As long as bad news reaches the information platform, almost all levels of managers can know the news at the same time. Zong Qinghou of Wahaha spends more than 200 days a year in the market. This kind of incognito investigation dispels any idea of grassroots managers covering up bad news. Moreover, Wahaha has set up a unique position of "market inspector," which gives the boss multiple information channels and avoids information "monopoly." Excellent enterprises always avoid salespeople working alone or contracting, but adopt professional division of labor and cooperation. This not only helps professionalization but also helps expose problems. Many bosses regard problems or contradictions within or between departments as abnormal. In fact, covering up problems or contradictions is more abnormal. Exposing problems or contradictions at least provides guidance for solving contradictions, while covering up contradictions usually only leads to their worsening. Valuing process management can also take measures when bad news just shows signs. Result management usually can only achieve the effect of "mending the fold after the sheep are lost." Haier's "3E management" requires "manage to everyone, every day, everything," which is a system that makes bad news unable to hide. Law: Marketing success usually comes from successful strategies, while marketing failure usually comes from management failure. In the initial stage of entrepreneurship, professionalism cannot beat cleverness. Therefore, successful entrepreneurs are usually not professionals with good professional training, but people with good understanding. When an entrepreneurial enterprise reaches a certain scale, the entrepreneur usually hires professionals as professional managers. Because when the enterprise reaches a certain scale, cleverness cannot beat professionalism. The initial stage of marketing is skills and strategies, which rely on cleverness and understanding. The advanced stage of marketing is management, which relies on professionalism. Enterprises keen on planning are usually enterprises in the initial stage. Planning may change the enterprise's current situation, but cannot change its fate. A creative idea, a point, a marketing strategy may be enough to support the enterprise to stand out, but to consolidate marketing results requires efficient marketing management. Management capability determines the ultimate scale of the enterprise. When scale doubles, management complexity increases threefold. How many people you can manage determines how big an enterprise you can do. Many enterprises cannot grow big not because they cannot, but because they dare not. Lacking management capability, even if the scale temporarily grows, it will slide back. Performance Laws Law: Performance appraisal is the behavior guide for salespeople. What the enterprise wants salespeople to do, it appraises. A boss once asked me: "What should performance appraisal assess? Is it based on sales for income distribution, or based on distribution rate?" I answered: "Compensation is a guide. What you want salespeople to do, you appraise." The principle is like "what is lacking, supplement." If the things required of salespeople are not done or not done well, it is best not to blame the salespeople; it must be a problem with performance appraisal. Performance appraisal has actually told salespeople "what to do and what not to do." Do not appraise what everyone has already done. If the enterprise still has attendance punching, it must be because someone is late or leaves early. What the company hopes salespeople to do but everyone does poorly should be strengthened in appraisal. For example, if salespeople used to be accustomed to doing trade market, and now they are required to strengthen terminal market, then the appraisal of terminal can be strengthened. If the company hopes to promote new products, the proportion of new products in the appraisal can be increased. Law: Sales are not necessarily performance; the salesperson's personal contribution to sales is the true performance. Two salespeople both have sales of 5 million yuan. Are their performances the same? Not necessarily. Because sales mainly consist of three parts: total sales = historical accumulation + current personal contribution + company resource investment = stock + increment. Historical accumulation (i.e., stock) is the result of "predecessors planting trees." Sales generated by company resource investment are increments, but they are not closely related to the salesperson. Only the current personal contribution is the true performance of the salesperson. Appraisal oriented by total sales actually "encourages" salespeople to "lobby" leaders to be assigned to good markets with large sales, and also "encourages" salespeople to ask the company for policies, because the larger the policy, the larger the sales, and the more income the salesperson gets. Law: Sales-oriented appraisal makes salespeople "game opponents" of managers, while profit-oriented appraisal makes salespeople and management "of one mind." Two salespeople both have sales of 5 million yuan. One sells all high-end products, the other all low-end products. Are their performances the same? Salespeople are so keen on spending money on promotions and advertising because it only benefits them and has no harm. Salespeople's income mainly comes from sales. Expenses are usually only control indicators, not closely related to income distribution. In the era of economies of scale, sales mean profit. Profit is an indicator hidden behind sales. Therefore, enterprises pursue profit, but appraise sales, and the two are not contradictory. Now is the "era of meager profits." Gross profit is gradually decreasing, expenses are increasing, and sales without profit have become a common phenomenon. The traditional income distribution method is challenged, and the phenomenon of expenses eroding profits is very prominent. Why does expense erosion of profits happen? Because in the marketing system, only people are responsible for sales, and no one is responsible for profit. If the enterprise's ultimate goal is profit, then who should be responsible for profit? In the traditional marketing system, only the general manager is responsible for profit. Even the marketing director is not related to profit. Many enterprises have never taken profit as an appraisal indicator for the marketing director. Regional managers and salespeople are even further from profit goals. Enterprise profit is the sum of each salesperson's profit contribution. Only when everyone in the marketing system is responsible for profit can the enterprise have profit. Under the traditional sales-oriented distribution system, everyone may have an unlimited impulse to abuse expenses to increase sales. To increase volume, they do not hesitate to over-promote and over-advertise. Appraisal based on profit contribution can solve the above problems. Profit contribution = product gross profit - marketing expenses The profit contribution indicator can be used for appraisal of the marketing system, as well as for regional managers and salespeople. Some may question: why not appraise expenses but profit contribution? Because expenses are a double-edged sword. Increasing expenses can increase sales and contribute profit, but excessive use of expenses can erode profit. At the same time, appraising profit contribution can also make salespeople actively adjust product structure, sell more high-profit products, and facilitate product upgrades. Everyone is a born economist, and everyone's behavior implies economic judgment. Rather than letting bosses strictly control expenses and ultimately let salespeople find excuses for not completing tasks, it is better to hand over the judgment of balancing input (expenses) and output (sales, profit) to salespeople to a limited extent. As long as profit orientation is the value orientation for appraising the marketing system, everyone will actively restrain their impulse to overuse marketing expenses. Law: Result-oriented, incentive-based performance appraisal seems effective, fair, and reasonable, but it is an important reason why enterprises cannot grow big. Past appraisals were based on the concept of "whether it is a white cat or a black cat, a good cat catches mice," suitable for salespeople who "work alone." When cats form a team to catch mice, it is not applicable. In the era of professional division of labor, the process of cats catching mice needs to be finely decomposed. Each cat is only responsible for a few mouse-catching processes or flows. In the group, some cats are responsible for chasing mice, some for encircling, some for peripheral patrol to prevent mice from escaping the encirclement. This will make each cat more professional and skilled in these processes. As long as the cat successfully completes these processes or flows, even if it ultimately does not catch the mouse, the cat should be rewarded. This is process-oriented performance appraisal. The biggest advantage of "working alone" is simple management. Each cat always catches mice alone and is rewarded according to the mouse. The biggest problem of professional division of labor is complex management. Only by coordinating all cats can mice be caught, and it is no longer possible to reward according to the mouse. From this, how to reward cats that did not catch mice is like a revolution in the field of performance appraisal. This revolution is from result-oriented management to process-oriented management. Law: Management by objectives is not indicator decomposition; management by objectives is work decomposition. Managers should have "two goals" in mind: one is the "sales goal," the other is the "work goal," and the "work goal" is more important than the "sales goal." If the "sales goal" is not completed, the monthly appraisal cannot pass, and the "hat" (position) and "ticket" (income) will be affected; if the "work goal" is not completed, you have to "rush sales" every month, and promotion will be affected. The "work goal" is work that improves market fundamentals and continuously increases sales, including new market development, new product promotion, market center downward shift, development of second-tier distributors and terminal customers, terminal promotion, etc. Although the "work goal" is very important, in reality it is often diluted by the more urgent "sales goal," or even forgotten. Without improvement in market fundamentals, in order to complete the "sales goal," salespeople have to frequently use promotions, price cuts, and other means. Therefore, front-line managers should focus on completing the "work goal" and thereby completing the "sales goal." Managers should arrange salespeople's work according to the "work goal" rather than the "sales goal." For example, the tasks assigned to salespeople should be "help distributors develop 10 second-tier distributors," "help distributors develop 30 terminal customers," "assist distributors in promoting new products," etc. These are work goals. Completing these work goals naturally completes the sales goal. Success Laws Law: "Failure is the mother of success" is the excuse of losers; true winners believe "success is the mother of success." Some say: failure is the mother of success. This is just the excuse of losers. Some say: success is the father of failure. This is a true portrayal of real life. Some marketing executives "send the enterprise from the cradle to the grave." Ultimate failure and initial success follow the same principle, verifying this statement. Some say: neither failure nor success is the mother of success; reflection is. This statement makes sense. Therefore, we say: not knowing why you failed is the most tragic failure; knowing why you failed is also success. Not knowing why you succeeded is also failure; only knowing why you succeeded is the greatest success. True winners always "go from success to greater success," so they believe "success is the mother of success." Law: To make the marketing machine less or not malfunction, you must constantly repair machines that are not malfunctioning. The most effective way to protect machines is not to repair when broken, but regular maintenance, or pre-repair when there is no malfunction. In short, eliminate problems in the bud. When are machines most prone to problems? Machine engineers and management engineers have summarized the famous "bathtub curve." Machine problems are divided into three stages. The first stage is the early failure period, when the machine is in the wear stage and prone to problems. Once wear ends, it enters the second stage, the random failure period, when the machine is not prone to problems. After a period of stable operation, it enters the third stage, the wear-out failure period. In the second stage of operation, although the machine rarely has problems, problems are imminent. As long as you maintain and repair diligently when there is no problem, you can delay the appearance of problems. Therefore, the best time to repair a machine is not after a problem occurs, but before it occurs. Law: Ordinary people are particularly afraid of bad news, but bad news is not terrible; what is terrible is the abnormal attitude towards bad news. When it comes to bad news, people's nerves are highly tense, blood pressure rises, pupils dilate, as if bad news is the beginning of disaster. When it comes to bad news, people avoid it like the plague, afraid that bad news will be associated with them and they cannot escape responsibility. In fact, bad news is not terrible. What is terrible is precisely people's incorrect attitude towards bad news and incorrect ways of dealing with it. Bad news is not terrible; what is terrible is that everyone and every department tries to insulate themselves from bad news. When a company's product quality problem is reported to the company, the marketing department says it is the production department's problem, the production department says it is the procurement department's raw material problem, and the procurement department says the marketing department did not collect payments, so the raw materials bought on credit are bound to have problems. When all departments and all people are insulated from bad news, no one is wrong, only two people are wrong: the boss is wrong - wrong to hire such people, and the customer is wrong - wrong to buy such products. Bad news is not terrible; what is terrible is that while the enterprise is shirking responsibility for bad news, consumers are "left out in the cold." For everyone inside the enterprise, clarifying responsibility may be more important than solving the problem. But for the enterprise, paying attention to consumer feelings is always more important than clarifying responsibility. Bad news is not terrible; what is terrible is turning a blind eye to bad news. When bad news keeps happening and is not effectively solved, people will be in a "numb state" towards bad news, and people are indifferent to bad news. When a company's product quality always has problems, at first salespeople actively report, but because management is numb to bad news, salespeople no longer bother to report. Even individual new salespeople report problems, but old salespeople and distributors will stop them. For such enterprises, bad news is not the product quality problem, but the attitude towards product quality. Bad news is not terrible; what is terrible is that bad news is constantly packaged during layer-by-layer reporting, so that bad news no longer looks like bad news. Bad news is not terrible; what is terrible is the lack of a systematic process to deal with bad news, instead emphasizing strengthening responsibility and professionalism to solve bad news. Bad news is not terrible; what is terrible is that when front-line personnel feel bad news is urgent, top management does not feel pain. Because the pain of urgency is for others, not themselves. Bad news is not terrible; what is terrible is insufficient attention to small bad news, and inability to bear big bad news. Some people do not regard small bad news as bad news, "small mistakes constantly, big mistakes never." In fact, making many small mistakes will inevitably evolve from quantitative change to qualitative change. Bad news is not terrible; what is terrible is that bad news evolves into disaster. Bad news is often the fuse of disaster. Although the fuse does not have the energy to explode, it can detonate explosives. Management science tells us: problems that have been discovered are no longer problems; the answer is in the problem. Similarly, bad news that has been paid attention to is no longer bad news, but good news - those who dare to correct mistakes are good people, and enterprises that dare to face bad news are themselves good news worth celebrating. Enterprises may never eliminate bad news, but they can make bad news have nowhere to hide - if bad news is not solved, keep it exposed in the sun forever. Law: The initial growth of an enterprise may rely on marketing strategies, but the ultimate success of an enterprise requires "the great way has no tricks." "Win steadily and seek truth, use few clever schemes" is a summary of Zeng Guofan's many years of practical experience. In the early days of forming the Hunan Army, Zeng Guofan repeatedly lost and fought again. After the defeat at Jiujiang, Zeng Guofan summarized the profound lessons of past failures and proposed the combat guiding ideology of "win steadily and seek truth, use few clever schemes," from repeated defeats to repeated victories, until defeating the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and becoming a famous general of the Zhongxing era. Chinese people have a deep-rooted "worship of strategy" in their bones. Liu Bang had few tricks, but he could drive the world's talents to compete in the Central Plains and achieve a hundred-year hegemony, yet he was not popular with the people; Zhuge Liang was resourceful, but although he only ended up defending the southwestern corner, he was talked about with relish by the people. Although many enterprises have achieved short-term success through clever schemes, few enterprises have achieved lasting success through strategy. When some enterprises talk with relish about the clever schemes they rely on for success, mature entrepreneurs and managers are worried about this value orientation. Enterprises pursuing clever schemes may succeed temporarily, but only enterprises that win steadily and seek truth can sustain success. They may have no secrets or experiences, or their secrets and experiences are either under a magnifying glass or under a microscope, already "battered," but this does not prevent them from continuing to succeed. We all know Haier's open secret is "service," but no other enterprise can clone Haier-style service; we all know Dell's "trump card" is direct sales, but among computer companies worldwide, only Dell can do direct sales well; IBM's core value of "providing solutions for customers" has long been public, but no one can truly imitate it. We all see the brightest side of these successful enterprises and think these secrets or experiences are the whole of their success, not knowing that this may be only a small part with the most news value or research value. Our analysis of successful enterprises almost all commits the error of "seeing only the trees, not the forest." For enterprises in the start-up or growth stage, "clever schemes" may be the weapon for them to gain a foothold, but if these enterprises want to become mature enterprises, they must also "win steadily and seek truth, not use clever schemes," just like Zeng Guofan completed the transformation of value orientation. Law: Managers can never change a group of people in the short term. Changing one person is difficult; changing a group of people is even more difficult. Changing a losing team is difficult; transforming a winning team is even more difficult. Changing people's thoughts is difficult; changing people's behavior is even more difficult. What determines people's behavior is not concepts, thoughts, knowledge, but habits. "Knowing is easy, doing is difficult" is an eternal problem for this reason. Changing a group of people is as difficult as changing a group of right-handers to left-handers. Buying a few feet of cloth to make a suit is easy; changing a Zhongshan suit into a suit is difficult. "If you don't change your thinking, change the person." Such words may be effective for individuals, but definitely ineffective for a group. It is very difficult to make a group change their thinking in the short term. The best way is to change people. "A new emperor, a new court." When people say this, they usually have a derogatory meaning, but it is often a helpless move. When Qi Jiguang was the commander of Fuzhou, he did not bother to reform the Ming army, but established a new "Qi Family Army." When managers cannot reform a team, the best way is to reorganize a team. Law: The farther marketing executives are from the terminal, the farther they are from success. Once, I "forced" the boss to inspect the terminal with me. From the distributor, I learned that this was the boss's first "personal expedition" to inspect the market, and this enterprise had a history of more than ten years, with its main market in the province. For the boss of this enterprise, although the market was right in front of him, he turned a blind eye to the terminal. After inspecting the market, the communication barrier with the boss disappeared in an instant. Because the boss is far from the terminal, the boss and grassroots marketing personnel often cannot communicate in "the same language." Some people call this phenomenon "the boss speaks bird language in the sky, and subordinates do pig things on the ground." Market center sinks, channels flatten, and the boss seems closer to the terminal, but the reality may be the opposite. While channels flatten, the internal management levels of the enterprise increase. Previously, the marketing system had only 1-2 management levels, but now it generally has 3-4 management levels. The more marketing management levels, the farther the boss is from the terminal, and the enterprise marketing system again plays the role of insulator between the boss and the terminal. The reality of the terminal is "corrected" layer by layer through marketing management levels, and by the time it reaches the boss, it is already unrecognizable. This is the "flattening trap" of marketing. Advice to marketing executives: A correct decision by a marketing executive can save the professional lives of thousands of salespeople, but the correct actions of thousands of salespeople cannot remedy a wrong decision by an executive. Therefore, marketing executives not only bear responsibility to shareholders and bosses, but also to subordinates and distributors. You have no reason not to do your best. - END- The best learning platform for FMCG distributors in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and applicable tutorials for enterprises and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get the corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent article selection | 002 Distributor market operation | 003 Terminal visit management | 004 Sales supervisor skills | 005 Sales improvement techniques | 006 Channel expansion | 007 Managing distributors | 008 Distributor development | 009 Distributor internal operations management | 010 Team management | 011 Efficient distribution techniques | 012 Sales manager's eighteen skills | 013 KA operation methods and strategies | 014 First lesson for new salespeople | 015 Internet, brand | 016 Distributor B2B transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]